April Fool's Day: Our Top 5 Best Hoaxes, Including Flying Penguins, Spaghetti Trees And High Chairs For Dogs

01/04/2012 07:31

The Huffington Post UK

In honour of April Fool's Day, we have compiled a short list of the best and the worst media hoaxes of all time, spanning from amazing fake BBC documentaries on spaghetti trees to awful panic-inducing pranks by American shock jocks.

Here are five of the best:

Ikea's high chairs for dogs

Animals doing people things is a constant source of humour (see: 98% of Youtube). Combine that with sometimes weird Scandinavian furniture design, and you're on to a winner of an April Fool's gag.

In this prank, Ikea produced and released a fake reveal of a new high chair for man's best friend.

The BBC's flying penguins

Yes, the effects look a bit dated now but at the time this fake documentary made by the BBC in 2008 to promote the iPlayer had many people second-guessing themselves.

Burger King's 'left-handed Whopper' whopper

The left-handed are a persecuted population – often thwarted by spiral-bound notepads and conventional scissors – and in one fell swoop fast food giant Burger King raised their spirits, and dropped them to the ground with a thud.

Releasing this press release back in 1998, Burger King alleged to have pioneered the left-handed burger, with its contents rotated 180° to better fit a left-handed grip. Alas, it wasn't true.

The 'left-handed Whopper': Like this... but the other way round.

The Daily Mail, Jacqui Smith and the Ann Summers photos

In 2009, the Daily Mail ran photographs claiming to be of Home Secretary Jacqui Smith emerging from an Ann Summers shop. The gag was a reference to the MP's expenses revelations that Smith's husband, Richard Timney, had claimed expenses for pornography he bought.

The BBC and the spaghetti trees

An oldie but a goodie, this hoax dates back to 1957, when the Beeb produced a fake three-minute Panorama documentary about Swiss spaghetti trees.

At the time, spaghetti was something of a delicacy and not widely eaten in the UK. Therefore, many fell for the story, about a Swiss family and their spaghetti-sprouting trees, with some calling and asking how to grow their own.

And, in honor of April Fool's Day, we have assembled a collection of the world's most deceptive hoaxes in recent history. Take a look at our choices below, and let us know which ones we've forgotten

World's Best Hoaxes

World's Best Hoaxes

1

of

8

Famous Loch Ness Monster Photograph

The most famous picture of the Loch Ness Monster, a grainy black-and-white photograph showing a long head and neck emerging from the lake, was eventually revealed to be a hoax. As the New York Times reported, the "monster" in the photograph was a bogus 12-inch-high model made from plastic, wood and a toy submarine purchased for two shillings, six pence in Woolworth's in a London suburb, David Martin and Alastair Boyd, of the Loch Ness and Morar Project said. (Photo: AP)